


Drift Compatible

by justbygrace



Category: Arrow (TV 2012)
Genre: Alternate Universe, F/M, Minor Character Death, canon character death, non-explicit reference to violence and death
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-11-01
Updated: 2014-11-01
Packaged: 2018-02-23 10:56:26
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,682
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2545043
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/justbygrace/pseuds/justbygrace
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Pacific Rim AU</p>
            </blockquote>





	Drift Compatible

It took less time for the world to end than it normally took for Oliver to order a drink at his favorite club. One minute everything was fine - he was having the time of his life being the billionaire playboy whose face graced the front page of every gossip magazine around - and the next the world was exploding and the news was just a lot of footage of desolation because apparently the ocean was actually the gateway to hell.

He didn't really think through the decision to sign up with Tommy. Everybody was doing it, after all, and if there was something Oliver didn't do, it was go against the status quo. Tommy and he were drift compatible of course (after all, hadn't they been nicknamed the dynamic duo way back in preschool?) and they soon became the best. The best of the best, really - part of an elite squad sent on the most dangerous missions. 

Oliver kind of thought it would last forever: piloting the Green Arrow with Tommy, kicking Kaijui ass, celebrating every victory with a girl on both arms (and occasionally a third just to mix things up). It was the best kind of life and Oliver had no problems (even the devastation didn't bother him all that much - he and Tommy won all their fights and that's all that really mattered). But the problem with forever is it doesn't really exist.

It was supposed to be a simple mission (well, simple for them anyway) and the fact that both of them were a little hungover didn't concern them, they'd beat the crap out of plenty of Kaiju with their blood alcohol level well over the legal limit - if there was even a legal limit anymore, the government mostly had other things to worry about these days. It was not simple. Everything started to go wrong almost the minute they hit the ocean and Oliver knew that things were going to go wrong, knew it as surely as he knew that the grass was green, America was going to lose this war, and girls were hot. Knew it but couldn't stop it. Couldn't stop the attack, the sudden rush of freezing water, and Tommy's scream that echoed through Oliver's very soul as his friend was torn into the water. And then it suddenly went quiet.

Waking up with the scars of Tommy's death stitched into his skin was something that nothing in Oliver's life had prepared him to handle. And so he didn't. He ran. He ran far and he ran fast, not stopping until he was somewhere where no one would recognize him, no one would look at him and ask about Tommy with that mixture of pity and curiosity that made Oliver want to rip their heads off. When he was finally aware of something that wasn't one long alcohol induced haze, he found himself in the middle of absolutely nowhere. The job wasn't glamorous, building a wall that wasn't going to do any more about the Kaiju attacks that any other goddamn thing the government had tried so far, but Oliver didn't care. Not about the wall, not about the Kaiju, and definitely not about himself.

That was how John Diggle found him five years later - in Alaska, breaking his back for the sake of a cause he no longer believed in. Dig was an old friend (if Oliver still had friends, which he didn't), but there was nothing friendly about the speech he gave about Oliver's pathetic life and the pathetic results of his efforts. And then, after all that, he had the sheer audacity to ask Oliver to go halfway across the world and operate a Jaeger again. Yeah, right, that sounded like a brilliant idea to Oliver. He laughed in Dig's face and told him a lot of things that Dig probably should have punched him into next week for but didn't. Instead the man laid his hand on Oliver's shoulder and just looked at him with no hint of pity or revulsion or curiosity.

That's more or less how Oliver ended up on a tiny plane, scrunched up tight next to Dig, and cursing everything for allowing himself to be swayed by the glimpse of human kindness he'd almost forgot existed. Dig was enthusiastic, insistant that the best way to stop the Kaijui was Jaegers and screw the government (all of them) if they thought they were going to stop him. Oliver didn't care about Dig's plan and he didn't care about the Kaiju and he couldn't believe that he was hurtling towards a bunker on the edge of the Pacific Rim. 

He had every intention of hijacking the next plane off of the bunker right up until he stepped foot on solid ground and saw her. She did not belong in a war zone, not with her skirts and bright fingernail polish and teal lips and saucy ponytail. He forgot about everything that wasn't the way her lips looked forming her name as she confessed that she was a big fan of his (he'd almost forgotten he used to be a household name) and making about fifteen faux pas in her first paragraph. It was the first time he'd smiled in five and a half years and he'd nearly forgotten how.

Her name was Felicity Smoak and Oliver wanted her. Oh, he wanted her physically of course, but more than that, he wanted to drift with her. To connect to that gorgeous, amazing, fantastic brain of hers. Especially after he watched her fight. He'd seen good fighters before, but Felicity was something else. She was all grace and speed and long lines and he wasn't certain he closed his mouth the entire time. There was only one thing standing between the two of them and that was Dig, who had such a forbidding look on his face Oliver didn't even suggest it. Hardly suggested it, anyway.

Seeing Green Arrow again - gleaming and whole and standing proudly between all the other Jaegers was the other emotion Oliver was ill-prepared to handle. She was maybe a little outdated - she'd been one of the originals - but somebody had gone to a lot of work to make sure she could measure up to the other Jaegers - Deadshot and Deathstroke and Black Canary. (He wasn't sure of the new emotion he felt when he found out that Felicity was the one who had mostly restored Green Arrow either.)

The other pilots - Sara and Laurel Lance: sisters, Slade Wilson and Shado: a couple, Floyd Lawton and Ben Turner: a duo Oliver vaguely thought shouldn't be allowed to walk free - were less than thrilled to see Oliver, but they were only more on a list of people who meted out judgement without spending more than five minutes talking to him. He didn't care, not really, well not more than it took to punch Slade in the face for a rude comment about Felicity. Next thing he knew, Slade had him pinned to the wall with only his forearm strength and Dig was breaking it up and Oliver knew he had officially created another enemy. 

Felicity apparently had some pull with Dig and he reluctantly agreed to allow her to participate in a test run with Oliver. It...didn't go well. For someone who looked like they belonged doing editorials in Technology Today, Felicity was hiding some pretty ferocious demons. It was all the team of scientists could do to shut down Green Arrow before Felicity blew a hole through the wall of the bunker. 

When he went to talk to her later (surprising himself - this was so far from his usual style or it was, he didn't know if he even had a style anymore), she wasn't terribly pleased to see him, but he didn't care. Not really, not after catching a glimpse of her past. He didn't force her to talk, but he did park himself in the doorway of her bedroom and refuse to move and Felicity Smoak might have been the most intelligent, phenomenal, remarkable person he'd ever come across, but she was not strong enough to make him move when he chose not to do so. 

She told him the story slowly, piece by piece, staring at the screens of her computers and the worst part of the whole thing was that she didn't ramble at all. Not once. And it nearly broke his heart. Afterwards he didn't say anything, he just walked over to her, rested his hand on her cheek, and looked at her the same way that Dig looked at him on the Alaskan base.

Dig, however, would hear nothing about them going out to fight. He wasn't about to put Felicity in a Jaeger and if that grounded Oliver because he was too damn stubborn to test his drift compatibility with anyone else, well, this was war and there were always losses. But then the losses became too great and Dig no longer has a choice. He was not thrilled, but he sent them out anyway because this was still war.

The first time out of the base and into the water was not without its dangers, but linking his mind with Felicity's as they fought as one was exquisite and addictive and Oliver wanted, no _needed_ more. They returned to base as heroes and it took every ounce of self-control for Oliver not to sweep Felicity into his arms and retreat somewhere where he could lay her down and pour his thanks into worshiping every square inch of her. He settled for a tight hug and the knowledge of where she was at all times in case Slade decided to make good on the dark looks he kept sending their way.

After that the good days got further and further apart. He and Felicity were sent out more frequently as the other Jaegers were being destroyed or disabled. The battles they fought were vicious, but he knew they were being too cautious, knew it by the looks that Dig was giving them when they returned to base in the evenings, but he didn't care. Not when it was keeping Felicity safe, not when he could see the imprint of Tommy's body on his skin every time he dared to look in the mirror, not when the demons howled at the edges of his mind.

Spending the day connected to someone else's psyche left a physical and mental ache when it was removed and when Felicity knocked on his door the second night, he didn't ask questions, just pulled her inside and curled his body around hers. He wasn't the only one who woke with bloody knuckles and fresh tear tracks, but they bandaged each others wounds and pretended that there was a future after this one. It was a platonic arrangement and Oliver couldn't bring himself to ask for more, to even consider himself worthy of her body. He told himself he didn't care and he told himself that often, but it was beginning to sound an awfully lot like a lie.

The end was coming. Oliver knew it, Felicity knew it, Dig damn well knew it, everybody knew it. The city was falling and every day another Jaeger would fail to return. Losing Deadshot was a blow, but Oliver didn't shed a single tear when Deathstroke returned crippled with Slade dead and Shado piloting alone. Black Canary and the Lance sisters were frequently Green Arrow's back-up on attacks and the four of them formed an odd friendship. Oliver quietly admitted to himself that the girls were the ones he would have tried to get with in his old lifetime, but now after completing a dangerous mission, all he wanted was Felicity.

The final day started with a speech from Dig that the discouraged base members found heartening, but told Oliver that Dig didn't expect any of them to live out the day. But he was still a soldier and Felicity was gripping his hand, and Dig was making him promise not to let anything happen to her, promise me Oliver, don't let anything happen to her. Oliver promised. Of course he promised. It was the only thing that mattered anymore. Making sure Felicity got through this alive.

The intel from the scientists told them it was a suicide mission, but somebody always needs to run a suicide mission and two and a half working Jaegers were the ones chosen that day. Dig took out Deathstroke by himself, telling Shado to stay behind, to rest and recover. Oliver gave her a wan smile as he entered the flight deck - he knew what she was going through better than any of the rest of them and in a different life he would help her through it. But today he had a mission.

There were no words between himself and Felicity as they mounted up, just firmly clasped hands - the drift would do the talking for them, and besides, what were words compared to feelings and emotions and doomed suicide missions that only one of them was coming back from?

The battle itself was mostly a blur. Shouted commands, watching Black Canary disappear in a wave of surf, Kaiju three times the size of normal ones, feints and maneuvers and shifts and blocks, suddenly realizing that Dig was going to sacrifice himself so that they could keep fighting, the panic as the battle led them deeper and deeper into the ocean, near-misses and well-aimed strikes, and over and under and through it all the warm and comforting presence of Felicity in his mind, the knowledge that she was there and she understood him better than anyone. 

He knew what he had to do before she did which is the only reason it worked. The bomb they carried had to be deposited in the mouth of the Kaiju portal and there was no guarantee that it was going to work, but Oliver was damn well going to try. Whatever else he was, he was not a coward. As soon as Oliver realized what he had to do, he hit the button to eject Felicity in the escape pod. Her surprised and angry face was the last thing he saw as the pod jettisoned her upwards, fading from sight in the blue-grey waters. 

Refusing to think about anything else, Oliver continued moving Green Arrow closer to the portal. He had seconds before it closed, seconds to get the Jaeger through, seconds to escape himself, but he couldn't focus on all the things that could go wrong. It was a game of tag like he used to play when he was young with his sister (his sister who he hadn't spoken or heard from in nearly six years) - ducking this way, darting that way, using the ocean's natural landscape to hide and then, then the final headlong rush to tag in. 

He was falling, falling down, his fingers fumbling for the buttons, he was rapidly losing oxygen, he pushed the button for the escape pod, but it was too late, it was probably too late. His last conscious thought was that he did care. He cared about anything and everything, everyone who was important to him personally and the rest of the nameless faces he was fighting to protect. And most of all he cared about Felicity.

When he woke up he didn't know where he was. It was hot and bright and every inch of him hurt like he'd been beaten and then Felicity's face was in his line of sight and he wondered if maybe he'd died after all. But then she was wrapping her arms around him and resting her head on his chest and rambling about things that his water-logged ears didn't understand, but he felt the hum through his chest and he relaxed and wrapped his arms around her in turn, pulling her close and pressing her lips to her hair. Because she was alive and somehow so was he and it kind of looked like maybe they'd won and that tomorrow was going to show up after all.


End file.
